Teachers' uneven distribution cripples system
Teachers' uneven distribution cripples system
By Santi W.E. Soekanto
UJUNGPANDANG, South Sulawesi (JP): The uneven distribution of
teachers in the country, one cause of poor education in the
remote areas, emerged as the central issue on the first day of
the third national conference on education.
Minister of Education and Culture Wardiman Djojonegoro, who
opened the event, said yesterday that one of the biggest problems
in Indonesia is the glut of teachers. However, few teachers are
willing to serve in remote areas, even as the problem of
unemployment in teacher-satiated urban centers gets worse.
Indonesia currently has around 1.5 million teachers. Every
year, some 17,000 new teaching graduates fight for positions in
public schools, Wardiman said.
By the year 2020 the country will need only 1.1 million
elementary school teachers and 1.195 million junior and senior
high school teachers, Wardiman said.
The problem of uneven distribution is caused not only by
overproduction, but also by the fact that the government can only
pay a limited number of teachers, Wardiman pointed out.
"There are schools which need more teachers, but we cannot
afford to pay them," he told The Jakarta Post.
"We also have to think about how we should maintain the
teachers already posted. How to make them like teaching by, say,
improving their salaries," he said.
According to a 1992 United Nations Development Program figure,
Indonesia spends only 4.5 percent of its state-budget on
education, one of the lowest levels in Asia. The government,
however, says that the total funds spent in 1992/93 were US$1.494
million, or 13.1 percent of the budget, with only the
transportation, mining and energy sectors attracting more
funding.
Anah Suhaenah, one of the convention's organizers, agreed that
the problem of overproduction was a chronic one. "There are
places which have an oversupply of teachers, while other regions
need a lot more," she told the Post.
The rector of Jakarta's Teacher Training College said many
female teachers quit when they get married or when they're posted
to a remote area.
"The government should intervene by providing greater
incentives for teachers in remote places," she said.
At present, teachers in isolated places such as Irian Jaya or
Kalimantan receive salaries and subsidies which are twice as high
as their colleagues' in the urban areas of Java. They receive
their wages through state-owned Bank Rakyat Indonesia.
"But in places where there are no branches of the bank,
teachers often have to pay their own way to go to the cities and
fetch their salaries," she said. "You can imagine why teachers
don't see teaching positions in remote places as attractive."
Suryanto Suryokusumo, representing the office of the State
Ministry for Administrative Reforms, said only 100 of the 1,000
teachers recently posted in Irian Jaya have stayed on.
"Most of the teachers went back home to Java," he said. "Who
could really stay and survive there, if even soldiers have a hard
time living there?"
One of the Irian Jaya regencies which frequently complains
about teachers abandoning their posts is Paniai. Hundreds of
teachers over the past several years have left their schools
because they could not stand the isolation. Madura Island in East
Java is experiencing the same problem.
Suryanto said the distribution problem is caused by poor
management and a lack of manpower planning on the part of
government agencies. Too many people and government agencies are
considered responsible for education, so nobody ends up being
really responsible, he said.
"Take elementary schools. They are the responsibility of the
education ministry, but elementary schools in the resettlement
areas become the responsibility of the transmigration ministry as
well," Suryanto said.
Suryanto's opinion has often been voiced by educators and
other experts. There has been confusion, for instance, as to the
status of Islamic schools, which are under the jurisdiction of
both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Religious
Affairs.
Wardiman also dismissed reports that his office had promised
to increase teaching wages before the 1997 general elections.
"There's no such plan," he told the Post. "The ministry every
year struggles to have their wages increased, but it's other
agencies which decide."
"Besides, the wages policy is part of the state budget that
starts every April. There's no connection with the general
elections."